Speak
by Madeline S. Williams
Summary: War; they said it was to stop the enemy, but she can't understand it. Because, no matter how many bad things he's done, she's his enemy too.


An old maple tree grows in her yard.

Its smooth, mottled trunk smells of earth, life; its age letting on to the years of consuming the secrets of young, giggling children. Its branches breathe in the wind, whispering from leaf to leaf; dancing in blissful disorder.

She, with reverence, traces the tap in the trunk, her thin, calloused fingers drifting over the wooden scar. It, to her, seems to belong there, having the memory of when it came to be come to the forefront of her mind. The wind rasps over her skin and runs up her nose, chilled and rough. Her bare legs soak in the grass; absorbing light to glow like fire in the evening sun.

It's been a while since she's been here, she realizes with a sigh. Ever since the war back in 1812, it had become a place to think, and hide from the deafening beat of mortality. Well, that and gunshots. She'd never let anyone know, but she hated staring down the barrel of a gun, whether she could die, or not. And, although she would never admit it, it was because of England, whom she was still conflicted about. The war had hurt them both, so much so that they had drifted from each other for some time. But, with time, someone had taken the first step, Amelia with England, and later, Matthew to Amelia. Matthew alway seemed to know how to apologize; too well, sometimes, in her opinion. He had given her the lowly maple sapling after the war; his hands caked in dirt, head bowed, with the young sapling in his hands. It had taken all her effort not to hug him, after socking him in the arm for being a doofus.

Children forgive so easily.

Slowly, with effort, she breaks away from her thoughts, her eyes landing on the man sitting beside her. His straight black hair pulses in the wind like silken wings, she thinks quietly; his skin, usually like ivory, is golden in the sun, and a faint shimmer lights his coffee-brown eyes. It takes her a moment to realize he is watching the sky.

"What is it that bothers you, Amelia- chan?" he questions, still looking away.

'What's wrong?' Amelia thinks to herself, internally stricken at both the sudden noise, and the question itself. Strangely, she knows she's upset, and that something is wrong; very wrong. But what? Lately, it was beginning to feel that everything was unsettlingly, wrong.

She suddenly releases a burst of air; whether it's a sob or a laugh, the man beside her doesn't know, and to be completey honest, neither does she. The man shyly questions her about it, unsure if he had inadvertently offended her. She shakes her head; her shoulder-length wheat - blonde locks of hair shimmering in the movement, and smiles faintly.

"Nah, you- uh, you're cool, Keeks. I guess I'm just thinking a bit."

She hesitates.

"Don't really expect that from me very often, huh?"

The man, whom she'd referred to as 'Keeks', withholds a chuckle at the strange term of endearment. He'd always been confused and amused at the western world.

"I assume you are always thinking. Maybe words are not able to hold the same meaning."

"Hm."

Her response slips out, guttural, but soft all the same. She rubs at her eyes. Ever-present, the sun sinks lower, inching closer to the horizon.

"What is it you were thinking about?" He furthers.

"Just,- the past," she murmurs, no longer emblazoned by the sunset.

Kiku feels her move closer to him, her soft, warm skin growing closer to his own, and decides not to care; too fascinated by the rivulets of gold and silver flowing around her head, and her crystalline blue eyes that encapsulate him like the had become friends soon after Amelia persuaded him to interect with others, despite their virtually opposite personalities, though Kiku chose not to complain. It felt nice to have a friend after so long a time in isolation.

Kiku smiles. She smells of wildflowers and wheat.

"Only a little while ago, Kiku," she starts, interrupting his thoughts,"I helped to save the world. I even thought that maybe, if I could help everyone out, that they'd be safe."

Kiku tenses, unsure of where his friend is going, but concedes to stay silent.

"Now though, Keeks, I'm just, - hopelessly confused. I'm 169 years old as an independent country, yet I still don't understand. I mean, I could try for 10,000 years: I could try for centuries to save them from themselves, but nothing works. They only hate, and slaughter each other more, like I'm not helping, but just adding fuel to the flames.

"Kiku, even if everyone hates what's right, I still feel obligated to do it."

Kiku feels her eyes, and shudders under the pressure. 'She trusts me to help her...' he thinks, his eyes widening. What if he says the wrong thing, and she learns the wrong thing? He'd never thought of how stressful it would be to directly influence someone, and suddenly, he felt a wave of awe for the way China had raised him.

"Y-you are, learning w-what most of us learned hundreds of years ago, Amelia-chan," he quickly thinks, dazed.

Despite the rushed way he put it, it was true. Amelia was hardly over 150 years old; a child in comparison to the rest of the world, Japan included. It only made sense that she would be learning things they had known for centuries.

Suddenly, Japan feels queasy. Amelia wasn't usually this quie-

"Someone bombed me a while ago, Keeks."

And there it was. The problem.

Kiku's eyes widen again, jolted by the new information; his eyebrows disappearing underneath his loose-cut bangs, and sputters.

"B-by whom?"

Japan's question glides out, but goes unnoticed by the intended recipient.

Fire, white-hot and stained with blood-red whips and roils at her skin, snapping and convulsing. Screams echo in the metal-shrouded chaos, death flying like crows from their throats. The ship groans, compressing and mutating from the heat. Another plane smashes into the side of the ship, causing shrapnel to spray, dropping men in their wake. She panics, and watches the hell before her.

Water begins to gush out from a new hole, it's rabid white froth hungrily eating the fire, and burying the dead in its darkness. She turns and runs, no longer able to continue watching, no longer able to stand there so helplessly.

"My best friend," she finally whispers, eyes still unfocused.

All other words fail to form, caught in her throat. Kiku only stares.

"Usually, I could understand. I mean, you and I, we're countries. We don't make all the decisions,that's what our leaders do. You and I only represent the people, the culture, the life; we don't have the power. And, it's usually against our will to go to war."

Kiku merely nods.

"But when it happened, Kiku, he was there. And all he did was watch."

Smoke as black as death itself breathes and cascades out of the hull of her ship. She can still hear the muffled cries and screams of the men below her, who are trapped, or injured beyond salvation, as she climbs up the rusted, metal ladder that leads up to the deck, her wet, clammy hands shaking in horror and shock.

She hears calm, slow footsteps; steps that can only mean the enemy, and catches her breath, fingering the pistol in her soaked, ashen-brown bomber jacket.

The sky looks so perfectly blue.

"He just stood there, and watched them die, Kiku."

His familiar, coffee-brown eyes meet hers, glinting in the bright sun. She drops her gun.

"I just, I couldn't shoot him! After everything he'd done, after all of it... I just couldn't shoot him, and I have no idea why."

She feels the boat explode from another impact, and swallows the scream inside.

He slowly moves his head, and walks away, scraping his sword along the rough, wooden boards.

"He usually apologizes for everything. I mean, he apologizes for breathing too loudly!

I even thought, before, that maybe he even..-"

She drifts off, not able to push out the last words.

Her hands are shaking now, Kiku notices, though from anger or pain, he can't tell. He considers the possibility of both.

"Now my leader wants to bomb him back," she picks up again, after silently pulling a burger out of the pocket of her bomber jacket. The black-haired man next to her merely smiles at the random timing, conceding to the fact that everything about her made no sense.

"He says it's necessary. That if we don't do it, even more people will die before the end of the war, and not just on 'his' side," Amelia emphasizes the 'his', clearly.

"I just wish we didn't have to fight," she murmurs softly.

"War is the inevitable price for freedom, Amelia-chan," Kiku replies, his soft words stinging through the air like sparklers.

Yet Amelia agrees anyway, like a wordless, 'I know, Keeks.' And, she really did know. She learned that lesson in the Civil War.

It just stung worse when someone spoke it, and vocalized it, outside of her own thoughts.

"He wants me to choose, though," she continues suddenly, possessed with the urge for him to understand.

"To choose between hurting him, or letting him kill even more people. I mean, the logical choice would be to choose whatever option would save the most people, which is to do it, but Kiku, I; Japan, I can't! I just can't! I can't choose to hurt him, but I can't choose to let him hurt innocent people! Even with that 'hero-complex' stuff Iggy's been bugging me about, I know that's not the only reason why. Despite all the things you've done, Japan, I still love you."

Kiku feels fire rush to his cheeks, burning.

'Love?'

"They've dropped pamphlets already, to warn your citizens, but I doubt they'll listen."

Amelia looks down, her golden, curly hair turned a metallic, silky silver in the glow of the moon. The air is still, dropping quickly in temperature.

Japan, without a word, and against all his usual reservations, lays his hand on hers, causing her to shiver.

Above them, the homely maple tree sways in the soft night breeze, its ghostly leaves whispering in hushed excitement.

"He is, still your best friend?" Kiku questions, his voice knowing the reason why he needed to ask. Amelia nods.

"Always, Kiku."

She breathes in the air, and turns to face him once more, only to see he'd disappered, vanished. Warmth blazes behind her eyes, and she looks away, with a sniffle.

"I really wish you were here right now, Keeks."

The gentle breeze picks up, as if in reply, catching her attention. She smiles feebly.

It smells of the ocean; soft and salty, with a hint of cherry blossom. The ground beneath her feels of ice.

Slowly, she stands, running her cold, stiff fingers along the smooth, frigid trunk of her beloved maple tree. She notices only one disturbance in the grass by the tree, the other space untouched, the grass as free and soft as before.

She sighs, and looks at the emptiness beside her, a twinge in her chest. She turns then, and whispers something back to the wind before retreating into her countryside home, halfway across the world from Japan.

"Thanks for the talk, Kiku."


End file.
